In
May 2009, one of the
largest orchestras ever
assembled to record an
original score for a video
game was recorded at the
Newman Stage at Fox
Studios in Century City,
California. The 96-piece orchestra performed
the music of composers
Jamie Christopherson and
Marika Suzuki;
orchestrated by Tim
Davies.
The performance was
recorded and mixed by
veteran audio mixer, Shawn
Murphy.

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Interview: Jamie
Christopherson

Tracksounds
talks with composer JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON about his
work for one of Capcom's most anticipated game
sequels, LOST PLANET 2. Jamie shares about working
with Audio Director, TOMOYA KISHI, collaborating
with Capcom-staff composer, MARIKA SUZUKI, and what
it was like returning to the LOST PLANET world and
the differences we'll hear in the original score
this time out.

CC: JAMIE, it's great to have
you on the SoundCast today.
JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON: It's good to be back with you
after a few years.

CC: It's really good to be talking to you again, and
it's really good to finally see LOST PLANET 2 on the
shelves for the fans to enjoy! It was a bit of an
adventure of its own, in terms of getting to the
point of releasing the game. Wasn't it?

JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON: We finished the score over a
year ago now, or at least my portion; the orchestral
portion of it. I think the original release date was
somewhere around Christmas time, and then the
marketplace became bombarded with releases. So I'm
pretty sure they pushed it back to tweak a few
elements of the game, but mainly to find a window to
launch the game.

CC: How early on did you know there was going to be
a sequel and that they wanted you to write the
score?

JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON: I think that was about two
years ago from today. It was a year before we did
the actual recording when they gave me a call,
saying “Hey, down the pipe here, we're going to be
working on LOST PLANET 2. Of course, I was very
excited, because the first one I have very fond
memories of. So from that point, I'd say my
production cycle was about a year, and it was
similar to the way I had worked on the first game,
in that it would come for a few months, and then go
away for another few months while they worked on the
development phase. So I'd be working on another
project during that time, and it would be completely
off my plate. Then we'd wait for more visuals to
come in, and there would be a “Phase 2”. I think we
did about 4 phases, and then a cinematic phase at
the very end, which was still a year ago. So I had
composed the music over the course of 9-10 months,
but not continually.

CC: When you're in a cycle like that and you have to
live with what you've done maybe 6 months earlier,
do you ever think, “I wish I could go tweak this and
that”, or rather “That's done and I'm moving on to
the next part”?

JAMIE CHRISTOPHERSON: Well the good thing is, we
actually did go back and tweak some things from the
earlier phases, based on changes in our palettes and
in our approach on certain things. A lot of those
things that I did earlier on, waited until the very
end to get the orchestral treatment anyway. So
during that time, I was kind of tweaking up things,
up until the very end of the mix. So, yes, I would
revisit them, but the tricky thing is, I would make
sure not to do any major computer overhauls during
that time, because I wanted to keep a similar sound
palette throughout the whole process.

Capcom
Audio Director, Tomoya Kishi and composer Marika
Suzuki discuss their unique approach to the music
and sound design of LOST PLANET 2: the collaboration
with composer Jamie Christopherson, their use of
Source Connect and Skype to virtually attend the
recording sessions in Los Angeles and the
possibility of more for the land of E.D.N. in the
future!

CC: KISHI-san and SUZUKI-san,
I want to first say “omedetou” (congratulations) on
the release of LOST PLANET 2. I also want to welcome
you to the SoundCast and thank you for taking time
out of your really busy schedules to talk with us
today about LOST PLANET 2. KISHI-san, maybe you can
tell us a little bit about how long you've been at
CAPCOM and how you became the sound director there?

TOMOYA KISHI: This is my 10th year at CAPCOM. Some
of the first projects that I worked on were the
ONIMUSHA games. I worked just a little bit on the
first ONIMUSHA, and also ONIMUSHA 2 and 3. Then I
became the sound director for LOST PLANET and now
I'm the sound director on LOST PLANET 2 as well.

CC: Suzuki-san, same question.

MARIKA SUZUKI: I've been at CAPCOM for about 7
years. I've worked on a number of CAPCOM titles
including DEAD RISING. I worked on the cutscene
music in DEAD RISING, and this time on LOST PLANET
2, I'm the main composer, basically heading up the
composition of the music in LOST PLANET 2.

CC: KISHI-san, let me ask, what was the biggest
difference for you in developing the audio and the
plan for the audio for LOST PLANET 2 versus the
first LOST PLANET?

TOMOYA KISHI: Well, both LOST PLANET and LOST PLANET
2 are certainly two games in a series, so the sound
isn't hugely different on the surface. One thing I
tried to do different in LOST PLANET 2 that I wasn't
really able to do in LOST PLANET 1 was try to
emphasize the difference in the sounds; basically
the differences between the big explosions and the
breathing of the characters, things like that. Of
course LOST PLANET 2 is a very realistic game, and
we wanted to bring that realism to the fore-front as
well, but I also wanted to make it a bit fantastic
and “gamey”. Well, “gaminess” might be the wrong
word, but we wanted to make it feel like a really
fun gaming experience by making the sound more
fantastic as well.